The purpose of this study is to develop a framework to explain the relationship between cultural codes of honor, same, purity and pollution and associated rituals. A theory has been developed that describes the economic, political, and social determinants of these codes and rituals, specifically the economic resources controlled by a social group, and frequency and intensity of feuding and psychological warfare. The study involves two related projects. First, the study tests the theoretical model on a cross-cultural sample of 186 societies. Second, the extent to which aggregate world patterns reflect the social dynamics of a single society was investigated through preliminary fieldwork in Egypt.